Telecommunication service companies provide access to local, regional, national, or international telecommunication networks for subscribers. Telecommunication service companies often create multiple access pricing plans to allow customers to use the service at their convenience, according to their different lifestyles. Wireless telecommunication service providers have different subscription service plans for local access, long distance, or toll telephone calls. In the pubic switched telecommunications network, an interexchange telecommunication service provider or carrier network generally provides telephony connections between different local exchange carrier networks and international networks. Subscribers to the interexchange network are generally enrolled in plans that may charge certain rates for service usage dependent upon various factors, including the destination the time of day or day of week, while charging different rates at other times and for other destinations. These rate structures are generally referred to as calling plans.
It is known that the calling plans are tailored for different calling time periods and calling patterns. The plans are generally based on network capacity, federal regulations for pricing and tariff rates. Nevertheless, the calling plans may include a flat rate for any call made during any workday, such as Monday through Friday, but another rate for calls made on the weekends. Another plan may have a flat rate during the day between certain hours and a different rate for another period of time. Other calling plans might have a flat rate because of regional calling patterns, such as a flat rate for calling anywhere within a predefined area of the East or West coast. These are so called regional flat rate plans. In addition, calling plans vary from a telecommunications carrier to carrier. The diversity of telecommunications services and the multiple calling plan options place subscribers in need of help. To save money, subscribers do not always choose an optimal plan for their usage patterns, nor do they always use the telephone service at the best time (e.g., cheapest) for their designated calling plan. One reason for this problem is the inability of most subscribers to analyze usage patterns or lack of knowledge as to what plan best fits their particular situation.
A subscriber has several options to determine an appropriate calling plan. One option is to directly contact a customer service office or a sales office of a telecommunications service carrier who can then analyze the bills. While helpful to the subscriber, this option does not enable the subscriber to have instant notification or knowledge via the network while initiating a telephony connection of the best calling plan or best time to call to save money. A second option is to contact a telecommunication consultant. This option can be undesirable because of the potential high costs of using a consultant.
Another option includes installing customer premises equipment (CPE) and devices to monitor usage. U.S. Pat. No. 5,748,718 to Manicone illustrates a call monitoring device installed at a customer site. In one aspect, the device purports to include rate data in an internal database. The device appears to be an accounting system for storing usage data and allowing the user to block telephone calls; limiting the number of calls per day, week, or month; and informing the user of preset spending limits. While this device might be helpful for some limited purposes, it does not provide a network-based method of informing the customer of the best calling plan or best time period to make a telephone call.
In the past, for direct-dialed calls, once a call was initiated by the subscriber, a connection in the network was established between the calling party and the called party without the calling party being notified of his/her current calling plan or which rate structure was most economical. Further, the calling party was not given an opportunity to shift the time of the call to another time during the same day or a subsequent day to save money based on the calling plan. Thus, what is needed is a method and system for advising a telecommunications subscriber of the least-cost calling plan or period in their current calling plan that solves the problems in the relevant art.